Smart Workstation Simplifies Synthesis: METTER TOLEDO's OptiMax

Rising time-to-market pressure in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries is forcing chemical and process development chemists to turn to more productive tools for organic synthesis and process development. METTLER TOLEDO's OptiMaxTM can help meet these pressures. The newly designed workstation has been created by chemists for chemists. It simplifies the way organic synthesis is performed and provides significant productivity gains during process development while carefully tracking synthesis to successfully produce quality data.

Chemical and process development chemists are required to make the right decisions faster than ever. Often, this means performing process characterization while optimizing chemistry at the same time. With OptiMax, process development benefits from enhanced traceability and reproducibility.

METTER TOLEDO's OptiMax provides one simple platform for safe, effective product and process development. "Earlier application testing in specialty chemical research or pharmaceutical pre-clinical trials may be desirable to shorten time-to-market. But without the right tools, this speed can compromise experiment and data quality or even be dangerous," said Urs Groth, Marketing Communications Manager Reaction Engineering at METTLER TOLEDO. "The challenges-that is, reduced time-to-market, simplification and safety-are overcome with OptiMax."

METTLER TOLEDO has made the OptiMax synthesis workstation compact, robust and simple to use. The intuitive touch screen allows reaction parameter changes such as temperature with just a few clicks. With a variety of reactors from 250 mL to 1 L, different stirrers and other accessories, assembling the workstation or altering configuration is quick and almost effortless. Ease of execution, accuracy and reproducibility are critical factors in synthesis and development and are ensured by OptiMax. Experiment data are presented in real time either numerically or as graphic trends. Data recording and reporting capabilities contribute to highly traceable and reproducible results.

Intelligent built-in automation eliminates error-prone steps and reduces process variability. With this high level of automation, OptiMax makes evenings more productive, too. Experiments can be programmed for execution safely around the clock and automatic data logging ensures that no critical process information is missed.

"Essentially, OptiMax goes a long way towards eliminating the bottlenecks that often plague high-volume R&D operations," concluded Groth. "OptiMax is a truly useful self-contained walk-up tool that chemists can employ for enhancing synthesis and, thus fast application testing, characterization and optimization of even their most sensitive and high-profile experiments."